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Wednesday, July 11, 2007

W. Marshall Watts and the Tamblyn-Watts family

I was digging around looking for information on Harold Tamblyn-Watts and I've been trying to piece together a little of his family history.

The earliest I can trace (as official records only began in 1837) is the marriage of Isaac Watts and Dorothy Scott in Rothwell, Northampton, on 17 June 1836. Isaac had been born in Market Bosworth in c.1811 and Dorothy in Rothwell, Northampton, in c.1817. Isaac was an Independant Minister of the New Congregational Church and a schoolmaster in Boston, Lincolnshire.

William Marshall Watts was educated at Owens College, Manchester, and at the University of Heidelberg. Watts returned to Owens College in 1864 to work as an assistant to Professor Roscoe, later becoming an assistant Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow in 1866. In 1868 he became First Science Master at Manchester Grammar School before moving to take the same position at Giggleswick School in Settle, Yorkshire, where he worked until 1904.

Watts was married to Ida Hartley Tamblyn in 1877. Now, Ida was born c.1850 in Newcastle, Northumberland & Durham in upper Canada, the daughter of Daniel Massey, the founder of Massey-Harris Co., of Toronto, and, on 16 August 1871, had married John Tamblyn, a bank clerk working in Newcastle.

The Tamblyns had at least one child, Thomas Massey Fisher Tamblyn, born in Toronto in c.1873. John Tamblyn died of consumption on 13 July 1875 at the age of 28. Ida Tamblyn then came to England where she married William Marshall Watts in Chorlton, Lancashire.

The newlyweds had at least two further children, Dora Mannock Watts (b. Giggleswick, Yorkshire, 1879) and William Francis M. ("Frank") Watts (b. Settle, Yorkshire, 20 January 1881, who fought with the 29th Battalion of the Canadian Infantry and died at the Somme on 26 September 1916).

Meanwhile, Thomas Massey Fisher Tamblyn married Marion (b. Glasgow, Scotland, c.1873) in around 1894 and their son John Marshall Tamblyn was born in Settle, Yorkshire, in 1895. The Tamblyn family then added Watt to their surname so that, in 1900, their second son was born Harold William Watts in Settle.

Tidying up their surname, the 1901 census lists Thomas T. Watts as a scientific apparatus maker, electrician and engineer living at Goldielands, Settle, Yorkshire, with his wife and two sons all listed under the name Watts.

It would seem that there was no rancor between father and stepson as their can sometimes be. Thomas Watts wrote additional material for one of his step-father's books and seems to have shared an interest in both the spectral properties of chemical elements and botany.

William Marshall Watts had published scientific papers on spectra in Philosophical Magazine and the Journal of the Chemical Society at least as early as 1864 and his 'An Essay on Lighthouses' appeared in Boys' Own Magazine that same year. He was also the author of a number of books:

William Marshall Watts later moved to Venner Road, Sydenham, in south east London where died on 13 January 1919. Thomas Tamblyn-Watts was living in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, in the 1930s but I've found no trace of his death in 1934-39.

John Marshall Tamblyn, Thomas Tamblyn's elder son, later became an electrical engineer.

His son, Thomas Murray Tamblyn-Watts, was born in Leigh-on-Sea on 22 June 1923. Educated at Littlejohn’s Private School, Essex, and Page’s Private School, Southend-on-Sea, T. M. Tamblyn-Watts (as he usually signed his work) studied art at BathArtSchool under Clifford Ellis. He married Doris May Jones.

As an artist in oil and watercolour he exhibited work in Holborn, but worked mainly as a book jacket artist for various companies, producing westerns for W.H. Allen, travel books for T.V. Boardman, science for Phoenix House, and work for Harrap, Guild Books and The Bodley Head. He also produced advertising for Kerry Engineering Co., H. Broadbent Ltd., Churchill Redman, Vickers-Armstrongs, Freeman, Hardy & Willis, International Combustion Ltd. and others. He wrote the book Oliver Trist for Collins. He was living in Sydenham, London S.E.26, in the mid- and late-1950s.

Like his uncle, Thomas also contributed to comics, namely two brief features in the first issue of Lone Star Magazine (1952) which were signed Thos. Tamblyn Watts. To my knowledge this was his only contribution. Uncle Harold Tamblyn-Watts, on the other hand, had quite an extensive career in comics which is worth exploring. But that's another entry for another day.

5 comments:

Interesting, Steve! Harold Tamblyn-Watts was, of course, the first artist on the weekly 'Supercar' strips in 'TV Comic', and produced two superb colour strips for the 1962 'TV Comic' annual. I look forward to seeing more about him!

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